


Dark Star

by midnightflame



Series: Homecoming [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:51:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Homecomings are never really the parade-and-party affairs the world would have you believe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to Light Up the Night Sky. Again, nothing too explicit, but given the pairing mature warning in place (though I write this with the understanding and intention of all parties being of appropriate legal age). And again, first attempt on something from Keith's side of things and playing around in this bit of fandom.

Keith doesn’t know where Shiro goes and he hasn’t tried to ask. Rather, he feels that should he put his questions to voice it would somehow force all the cracks into existence, a visual field of all the landmines Shiro has set off within his heart, within his mind, leaving only charred reminders of the things that forced him to walk such a path in the first place. There is always a time and a place to talk about such things, but right now, Keith knows Shiro hasn’t found either of those yet.

But he does know there is darkness swimming in Shiro’s past. It lurks in the depths, well beyond the smiles and the straight-backed command, the solid presence of leadership Shiro projects every time he stands together with all of them. But he can see it, sometimes, this shadow-image large as a shark and just as terrifying as it cuts across Shiro’s gaze. Just the flash of a memory sinking as fast as it had risen. And in those short moments, Keith can feel the corner of his mouth twist downward.

It’s in those moments he doesn’t mind being the soured existence of the team. It gives him an easy excuse (because blaming Lance’s stupidity during it all sounds far more plausible than watching as Shiro falters for the briefest of seconds). But still, he looks and sometimes it takes every ounce of discipline he’s convinced himself he doesn’t have to not reach out and tug Shiro away from this place, to take him somewhere quiet and settled and let him shatter for a few fault-lined breaths. 

Shiro is full of faults, but Keith thinks he’s impossibly beautiful. Thinks this because Shiro can still stand there for all of them, unafraid despite himself. In spite of himself - maybe that's more accurate. Perhaps it's a bit of both, but Keith isn't going to debate that. Because Shiro will act for them all, and he can be so wonderfully stupid in that too. 

But there are nights, just like tonight, when he knows Shiro has gone somewhere else, picking through the wreckage of a place he knew once far too well and has probably told himself he would never revisit again. But like a haunted house, he can’t seem to keep himself from going back, trying to find the ghosts still calling out his name. 

Keith only hopes it’s to send them home, not bury himself beside them. 

It’s why, when the tremor sets slight to Shiro’s muscles, when his breathing constricts, and the pain runs itself raw in his gaze that Keith finally lets himself stir. Because no matter how many times Shiro touches him, no matter how many times they lay together entangled and intertwined with smiles lacing lazy kisses and the sheets almost stifling in their warmth, hours later Shiro still manages to find himself lost in some place Keith can’t easily tread. 

And that is when he moves, the calm of his touch like a quiet murmur soothing each act. He laces their fingers together, enduring the shock that comes when Shiro’s grip bites down rough and unrelenting over his own (Keith imagines trying to crush the threats snapping up from the dark, the bits of his own self Shiro no longer trusts), then settles lips to the base of thumb, the jut of bone on the outside of his wrist, the tender flesh at the crook of an elbow. And he watches as the tension forgets it ever had a home to call in Shiro, as the pain slowly unravels and the light breaks once more in a gaze that had gone bottom-of-the-barrel black. 

Because Shiro is stupidly, beautifully human, and it makes Keith’s heart stumble every time he awakens once more to the life Shiro knows he still has.

When Keith finally pushes up from the mattress, he places a hand over Shiro’s heart, settling the staccato out of its rhythm, and sets his lips against Shiro’s. He smiles ever so slightly as he gets acceptance in the way they part willingly for him, as Keith calls him back home.

And Shiro. . .he always comes back.


End file.
